It’s an Ice Age for Sure

“Real climatologists, meteorologists, and scientists paying attention to both the past and to present events are forecasting more intense and longer winters—for now a Little Ice Age.” – Alan Caruba

It’s an Ice Age for Sure

By Alan Caruba

Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desire. I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate. To say that for destruction ice
Is also great.And would suffice.

— Robert Frost, American poet.

Robert W. Felix borrowed from the poet Robert Frost for the title of his book, “Not by Fire but by Ice”, first published in 1997 and devoted to the science of magnetic reversals and the Earth’s ice ages. I read it first in 2010 and was absolutely floored because Felix makes a very strong case for a reversal that would lead to a widespread extinction of life at some point in the future. In the near, more predictable future, he said the Earth was heading into a new ice age.

“What would happen if a magnetic reversal occurred right here?” asked Felix. “The same things that happened in the past. Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, giant snowstorms, rising land, plummeting sea levels—you name it—tectonic activity would go bonkers.” Don’t believe him? Think about the disappearance of the dinosaurs some 65.5 million years ago.

The Earth had been in a cooling cycle that began in 1996 when the sun entered a cycle of reduced radiation. Such cycles were well known and most dramatically tied to the mini-ice age that occurred between 1300 and 1850. Solar observers had noticed many centuries ago that when there were few sunspots—magnetic storms—on the surface of the Sun, the Earth got colder.

This has become especially dramatic because, on February 17 a post on http://thesiweather.com/category/climate-info/ called for a discussion of the fact that “The Sun has gone quiet again during the weakest solar cycle in more than a century.” The post says, “If history is a guide, it is safe to say that weak solar activity for a prolonged period of time can have a negative impact on global temperatures in the troposphere which is the bottom-most layer of Earth’s atmosphere—and where we all live.”

“There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first is known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’, named after solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and it lasted from 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the ‘Dalton Minimum’, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton and it lasted from 1780 to 1830.” Together they are referred to as the “Little Ice Age.”

There are quite a few scientists forecasting a new ice age. The last ice age began approximately 1.6 million years ago in the Pleistocene epoch. We are currently in the Holocene epoch that began about 11,000 years ago and is regarded as an interglacial period of general warmth.

In his book, “Dark Winter: How the Sun is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell”, John L. Casey, a former White House national space policy advisor, says that whatever warming has occurred has ended as the result of “solar hibernation”, a term he applies to the reduction of energy output of the Sun. The “climate change” that is occurring is a long-term reduction in the Earth’s temperatures with, says Casey, “a high probability of increased earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.”

In “Cold Sun”, another book by Casey, his says that “The most likely outcome from this ‘solar hibernation’ will be widespread global loss of life and social, economic, and political disruption. You must prepare for this life-altering event now!”

In January 2012, Matt Ridley, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, noted that “The entire 10,000-year history of civilization has happened in an unusually warm interlude in the Earth’s recent history. Over the past million years, it has been as warm as this or warmer for less than 10% of the time, during 11 brief episodes known as interglacial periods.”

Those who kept warning of a “global warming” with dire results misinterpreted the climate. Ridley noted that “It’s striking that most inter-glacials begin with an abrupt warming, peak sharply, (and) then begin a gradual descent into cooler conditions.” That is what is occurring now.

None of this has anything to do with carbon dioxide, ozone, or any other element of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is entirely the result of the lower solar radiation of heat.

The United States should be taking steps to ensure a sufficient supply of electricity to cope with the lower temperatures, but has been wasting billions to support “renewable” energy, wind and solar, that is costly and ineffective. The U.S. Energy Department projects that solar power will make up 0.6 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2015. Wind power which is funded in part by taxpayer subsidies to stay in business has received $7.3 billion over the past seven years, but produces a minimal amount of electricity to justify its cost.

At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency’s “war on coal” has forced many plants providing electricity to close. A significant disruption of electricity over an extended period of time will cause many deaths due to the cold weather. It is inevitable.

At the same time, instead of providing a source of food, tons of corn are being turned into ethanol in the name of reducing carbon dioxide even though CO2 plays no role whatever in a “global warming” that is not happening.

It’s not just another typical winter. The U.S. and much of the northern hemisphere is experiencing increased cooling that is seen in record-breaking and record-setting new amounts of snow and ice. This is a trend tied to the Sun’s and the Earth’s cooling cycle.

That is of no concern to those who are using “global warming” and “climate change” in order to bring about a transformation in the global economic system from capitalism, the most effective creator of growth and wealth, to socialism, a pathetic, failed system of income redistribution controlled by a central government. Directed out of the United Nations, their absurd claims are supported by the media and many deluded politicians.

Is the U.S. government responding in a sensible way? No. When President Obama speaks of “climate change” he means “global warming.” The result over the past three decades has been the waste of billions for “research” and other schemes tied to this huge hoax.

Real climatologists, meteorologists, and scientists paying attention to both the past and to present events are forecasting more intense and longer winters—for now a Little Ice Age.

56 thoughts on “It’s an Ice Age for Sure”

The take away? Learn how to be self-sufficient. If we’re again headed anywhere close to another Little Ice Age, with the decrease in food production and increasing human population, expect a LOT of famine, conflict, war, misery, and death.

Not to worry about starvation, Obama is busy culling the population of the M.E. using ISIS. It won’t be long now until the entirety of the M.E. is consumed in a bloody conflict between the Shia and Sunni which will kill millions, all of which being instigated by Obama. It would be a kindness to call him feckless and incompetent, the reality though is he patiently worked towards these events destabilizing the M.E. using his community organizer skills.

No, the ISIS Wahabists have been around for a lot longer than Obama. If you want to blame someone, blame Bush and company for wining a war and then abandoning Irag to its sectarian fate; above all, not having a plan and funding for the peace after it, the rest is history, repeated history at that, after Afganisan was cleared of the Tabiban the first time.

Bush wasn’t in office in 2011 when the troop pull out occurred. Over 50,000 Iraqis have died since Obama pulled them out. That’s on him, not Bush. Obama has kneeled the ball in both Iraq and Afghanistan to allow the terrorists to take over. Syria was not in turmoil until 2011 when Obama said Assad had to go, since then over 200,000 people have perished in Syria. That too is on Obama.

It will take several even more severe winters before Main Street America takes notice.
Warmist Climatologist is in charge of the purse strings for scientific comment. The Democrats and their fellow Green terrorists have the US politics sewn up; the big money news organizations are fully backing the AGW Emperors New Clothes story. The permanent US government is fully supporting the Green agenda; the EPA will long and prosper. Camelot is alive and well.
I have news for them, once the Solar Minimum bites hard, and at the moment it’s only giving the US a minor chewing. You haven’t got the generating capacity in place to maintain your electricity grids. Without Electricity the US is finished as a producing power. I would hazard a guess that this quarters US growth will be negative the same as 2014.
The Democrats will win at the next election, as the Republicans will use a candidate favored by the far right and the religious fundamentalists, instead of a candidate who sits in the middle and can beat HC on her own ground.

Great article, the more people recognize that the Sun is a variable star whose output is moderated on 178 year cycle, and that cycle is a steadily warming ramp of around 140 years, with an abrupt change into rapid cooling of around 38 years, which then allows the cycle to restart the better

Heilongjiang Province, northeast China – Feb 22, 2015
Traffic departments in China’s northernmost province of Heilongjiang are working day and night to clear snow on expressways and escort stranded passengers back home.
The heavy snow forced many expressways to close, stranding large numbers of travelers who are out on their Spring Festival holiday.
Expressway administrations have sent eight vehicles and 24 workers to escort more than 180 buses, transporting over 8,000 tourists.
“After the heavy snow yesterday, we launched an emergency plan. Now over 600 large snowplows are working on roads,” said Chen Ziliang, an official from the Expressway Administration Bureau of Heilongjiang Province.
“I started to work at six in the morning and have been working for 14 hours,” said Dong Junqi, a snowplow driver.
Traffic police officers also worked with expressway administration to escort vehicles.
“We’ve just completed our last mission. We have dispatched 16 police vehicles and 22 police officers to cooperate with the expressway administration,” said Wu Junfeng, a traffic police officer.http://220.181.168.86/NewJsp/news.jsp?fileId=283875

Saudi- Authorities on high alert after blizzard.
MENAFN – Arab News – 23/02/2015
(MENAFN – Arab News) Health and security officials in Tabuk have been on full alert because of snowstorms in the northwestern part of the Kingdom over the past two days. The affected areas are AlDhaher Alakan Abu AlHanshan Attabaq Tinenar Wadi AlAsmar AlLawz Mountain and AlAniq.
The Saudi Red Crescent has reinforced its teams with extra officials to take care of the large numbers of people who are enjoying the snow. The Civil Defense has issued early warnings to alert people to take care and follow safety measures in such extreme weather conditions.http://www.menafn.com/1094110617/Saudi–Authorities-on-high-alert-after-blizzard

This is supposed to be in Solar Max, spotless days should not occur, or perhaps they do in Grand Solar Minimum:http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50
A third spotless day is recorded with no single spot over 336 pixels. The next week will be one to watch.
A new paper by McCracken, Beer & Steinhilber is published in Solar Physics which aligns itself very strongly with my theory and paper on solar grand minima. The AMP event or barycentric anomaly being the major differentiators from other planetary theories. Anthony Watts has refused to review this new paper along with mine, although F10.7 flux increasing.

I know all of us who follow iceagenow are aware and respect Russian solar physicist Habibullo Abdussamatov..2 years ago..his new paper predicted this turning point to a new climate..its work in progress and he speaks the truth with his gifted knowledge…I copied just part of his work to refresh us believers.Heres just 1 paragraph…he says….The start of Grand Maunder-type Minimum of the TSI of the quasibicentennial cycle is anticipated in solar cycle 27±1 about the year 2043±11 and the beginning of the phase of deep cooling of the 19th Little Ice Age in the past 7,500 years in the year 2060±11 Figure 1, 2). Now we witness the transitional period from warming to deep cooling characterized by unstable climate changes when the global temperature will oscillate (approximately until 2014) around the maximum achieved in 1998-005. these prognoses are confirmed by the Sun itself and the course of global temperature changes and the level of the World ocean for the past 16 years.

They should also look for early signs of a major glaciation and develop contingency plans for relocating people and nuclear assets. Better to deal with the problem early than have a last minute panic and a total charlie foxtrot situation

Near Hudson Bay there’s over 10 inches of SWE and in the mountains of British Columbia and parts of Montana/Idaho, there’s over 30 inches equivalent. Record cold for January and February over much of the CONUS east of the Rockies? I wish the experts would look at how glaciation begins and determine if SWE is more important than sheer snowfall depth. If it is, and I suspect it would be, then we’re looking at rebuilding those precious land-based glaciers the CAGW fools like to ballyhoo are soon to be a “thing of the past”.

And yet again, a totally insignificant winter 2015 along the North Sea coast, at least in The Netherlands.
I haven’t seen any snow whatsoever, a bit of wet snow maybe and temperatures mainly roundabout 6 degrees above Celsius.
Amazing, as so many parts are experiencing such severe winter conditions,so we seem to be living in a kind of oasis and I wonder why.
Are there any other parts in the Northern hemisphere that seem to have escaped the wrath of winter ?

I call it the West Coast Effect – the Pacific coast of North America and the North Atlantic coast of Europe enjoy mild winter weather, while the interiors of North America and Europe get frigid Arctic air. This can cause some dramatically extreme differences in weather between the West Coast and the interior of the two continents

Another FACT is that wind energy CANNOT replace fossil fuel generated electricity simply because the WIND IS FREQUENTLY TOO WEAK OR TOO STRONG TO OPERATE THE BLESSED WIND TURBINES.

WIND ENERGY IS TRIVIAL AND TOTALLY UNRELIABLE……..FACT !!

Check out gridwatch.templar.co.uk to get a LIVE record of UK National Grid electricity generation. The wind is LIKE A YO-YO !!
One CANNOT rely upon it to produce electricity for 65 million people in the UK.

Power grids?!! You people are talking central government structures to provide electricity? The only centralized government structure needed is rebates and credits for individual energy initiatives…. Individual energy independence. No way any grid structure will survive -50(F) air with -70(F) wc for any length of time without repairs, and in the deepest and coldest days is when she fails(FU, Murphy!!). Personally, government contractors and planners in suits don’t warm my cockles in this situation.
What does? Wind turbines at night and the complementary solar panel array during the day.
Oh, and an ass-ton of duct seal and great stuff!

If we are indeed heading into another Dalton or Maunder Minimum, I can’t help but worry what will happen to the people of Canada, as I fear most of their fine country, other than the Pacific Coast, could become unlivable, or nearly so. There were obviously a few French trappers and other hardy types who were living in Canada during those two previous Minimums, but I doubt that there will be much agricultural production out of the Canadian wheat lands. if we get a repeat, following the recent peak in the late 20th century.

Considering the remarkable congruence between temperatures during the Maunder and Dalton Minimums and periods of decreased TSI (Total Solar Irradiance), which even NASA researchers noted last year, the odds seem very high that we are heading into another few decades of extreme cold as TSI plummets.

Agreed, one of the key indicators which are not falsifiable by NOAA is the ability of the Wheat harvest to be grown and harvested in a season in high latitude counties.
Already there are signs in Europe that the climate band for growing wheat is moving south, with the southern countries of the Med having one of the best Wheat harvests during 2014. Other country as risk for reduced agriculture is Norway, Sweden and Finland.

we were down to 21.0 °F (Minus 6°C) and it is still snowing! Normal high is 49 °F (9.4°C) and low 33 °F (0.5°C.) It is almost March, my pastures should be greening up and almost ready for grazing not white with snow.

Scrounge, scrounge mutter…

Yes, my memory was not fooling me. According to the chart on page 26 in Production and Utilization of Pastures and Forages in North Carolina warm season Bermudagrass should start growing mid May or before, and my rye (small grain) should have started growing again in January peaking at the end of April.

“…If grain harvest is desired, considerable grazing can be obtained between November 1 and February 15 [ROTFLMAO] without materially reducing grain yields… Rye produces more forage on sandy land whereas barley is more productive on the clay soil of the piedmont….” page 46.

Hmmm I may take a Leif out of the vikings page switch to barley next year. My rye hasn’t grown at all since the end of September!

As in times past, nothing useful will be done until the phenomenon involving cooling temperatures due to an inactive sun is staring humanity in the face from six inches away.
Until we are eye-to-eye with it.
Read the late Barbara Tuchman’s “The March of Folly”.
Humanity’s unending stupidity, stubbornness, and arrogance, it’s refusal to allow reality to get in the way of it’s “conventional wisdom” is the crux of Tuchman’s book.
If she is right, it does not bode well for us in any way.

This is what they are worried about in my area:
[i]Winter wheat enters dormancy during the cold months and comes back to life in the spring, needing warmth and sun to reboot. A late cold snap can throw the crop’s growth off-kilter, resulting in lower yields or all-out decimation.[/i]

If you look at the ice core records for our current benign Holocene interglacial it is clear that the last millennium 1000 – 2000 AD was the coldest in the last 10,000 years. At 10,000 years our interglacial is now long in the tooth.

This would seem to point to a coming real glaciation either this century next century or this millennium.

That in combination with Dalton minimum solar characteristics support the assertions made here. That makes any current warming look beneficial but trivial and entirely irrelevant.

Green politics in the west promoted amongst others by Putin is barking up the wrong tree in a very damaging manner.

suns still near spotless and the quakes are increasing in numbers n force
japan got a few biggish ones yesterday for eg
hard to plan for massive changes
high ground can fall down too
but I would pick higher areas with no known or very rare minor quakes avoid old volcanic sites.
no where downstream of a major dam.

It’s a work of condescending liberal moral equivalence. They mix people’s issues with religious disagreements at the top of their bullet point list and then at the bottom items like the vaccine scare that liberals themselves hold to. It’s a version of birthers to the right and truthers to the left in order to discredit the factual stuff.

Why not see if some knowledgeable climatologists will offer a five year prediction of global cooling change? Publish it on your website, ask all who will to republish it, and demand change in policy?

As the predictions work out call more and more for a massive repudiation of the current administration and both political parties. Demand a third party. Increasingly cite the failures of both parties in all areas and point out a new ice age is more ruinous than all of them together. Emphasize the lunacy of the current administration and Congress.

I suspect the winter weather in the next couple of years will be better advertising for this theme than anything the main stream media can say against it. This is an age of political crisis even without climate change. Political instability should grow in any case. Forcing a political break in favor of responding to global cooling and the resumption of interest in coal and nuclear power would be better than the current drift towards a third world war. If the threat is observed soon enough a coming ice age may be the savior of the world.

It is highly doubtful that there is much chance of escape individually. The cooling high latitude regions should force populations to move south which would likely be met by fierce resistance and war. The carnage would promise more immediate destruction than a simple ice age. Forcing political reassessment sooner is then imperative.

But note that even the global warming fools are having difficulty selling their message with all the money and political clout behind them. Don’t try to get too far ahead of events. The weather will speak loudly for you.

The article fails to mention the extreme heat in the Western US this winter and in other parts of the globe. In an ice age world, I am looking for something to occur that I have not seen before. I have seen extremely cold winters with snow before (I went to school in them without 2 hr. delays). The current US temperature map close mirrors the map from 1934, extreme cold in the East, extreme warmth in the West. I remember in the early 90s a few days in upstate, NY were so chilly you shivered in the shade and there was frost at night. I guess what I am saying is show me weather I have not seen before. For example, show me a day in July where the temperatures fail to climb out of the 40s for a high in NYC-which I have not seen. Therefore, until that happens I will keep reading, but I am not convinced that an ice age is on the way, due to weather events I have seen before.

It’s 38*F here out west, yes we’ve been warmer than usual, last time we had a winter like this we had a horrible wet summer, thunderstorms weekly during spring through summer, not good for the “bread basket” we call the Palouse, my friends are worried about their winter wheat.

Maunder, Dalton and this Modern Solar minimum have their causes in the disturbed orbit of the Sun around the Solar Barry centre causes by the position of the four Jovian gas giants. You mention the 1930 and 1970, both periods had severe weather; both were during low solar activity with SC16 covering the 1930s and SC 21 covering the late sixties and early seventies. Both cycles experience meandering and then stuck jet streams as now particularly at the start and finish of the cycle. I think that the winter position of Polar Jet stream is heavily dependent on the amount of EUV the Sun is emitting at the time. As far as a return to a full on Ice age that will take a significant geological event to kick it off early, otherwise start worrying in 500 years time. The following may help.http://www.landscheidt.info/images/ultimate_graph2.jpg

I must add that in no way do I indorse the global warming theory. There are just too many ways for the earth to cool. I am just skeptical if the big cool down is occurring or we are just going into the normal 30 year cold cycle we’ve seen before.

I would tend to agree with you. Current evidence “suggests” that a very deep cooling may be underway, however, we have been down these roads before and I would be extremely hesitant to declare an “iceage” imminent. It is simply too difficult for us to predict.

AGW on the other hand .. Definitely “Mann Made” .. the scam that is .. the so-called “greenhouse effect” is simply not possible, let alone “we’re all going to roast to death”.

@Kenneth Simmons
I’m not endorsing a new ice age or denying that the planet is warming, but the fact of the matter is that world governments want total control over all of us by way of regulating CO2 emissions and telling us what to see, think, and believe. We’ve been told that 2014 was the “warmest year on record” but then the so-called experts had to retract it by stating that they’re only 38% sure it was the hottest in recorded history. The error bars are ten times as broad as the ridiculous 0.02°C “increase”. So are you willing to concede control over your life, your family’s life, to a faceless and mindless government bureaucracy when they can’t even agree that we’re warming or cooling? That they have to fudge numbers, misinform, and distract from the man hiding behind that curtain (to paraphrase from “The Wizard of Oz”)? I’ve shown on other websites using NOAA’s own data to refute many of their talking points regarding CAGW: increasing extreme rainfall events, increased tornado activity, increased humidity (since more CO2 can yield more atmospheric water vapor), increased droughts, you name it. We are being lied to. And if we aren’t being lied to, then they obfuscate to promote an agenda of some design that the average no-brain no-questioning individual will remain ignorant about.

Think about it. The governments of the world want gun control. They want control of free information via net neutrality regulation. They want to tell us what to eat. They want us to feel guilt over enjoying a cheeseburger. They want to tell us that you’re keeping your house too warm or cold via smart technology. And, they keep dropping educational standards. College students are told not to question their professors, and the vast majority of them have a liberal bias where open and free debate are not seen as a hallmark of maturity and critical thinking but rather of poor social engineering.

Read George Orwell’s “1984”.
Read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”.
Read Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”.
Read Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto – albeit the work of a mad man, it still spells out the perils of technology on an ever-more dependent society.

If you do not fear your government, you are living in a state of delusion and will be the first to be easily rounded up and disposed of. No, this is not some tin-hat crock pot theory, this is what previous leaders the world over have done when they’ve grown too powerful and delusional with power. When it comes to global warming and climate change, it is only the hope of people like Robert to keep the pressure on the public to use critical thinking skills to see that something doesn’t add up and that it is our duty to question something as fallacious as humanity-induced catastrophic global warming.

H.B., I agree with you that the Government can use climate as a tool for control whether it is CO2, global warming, or global cooling, etc. My point is simple, show me a result (regardless of the claim) that I have not seen before or that has not been occurred in the last 200 years by anyone. Then and only then will I say, “You may have something there”. If global warming is occurring show me, if global cooling is occurring show me. Neither side of the climate argument has produced any proof in my eyes that we are not seeing conditions not witnessed in the past 100 years.

What goes up must come down.During the past 10,000 years civilization has been built on a mirage. After all change and death are the only natural guarantee’s in life, survival of the fittest. The earth is like a dog and we are it’s fleas,everything has it’s breaking point,after it’s been bit it’s a matter of time before she shakes loose some of it’s fleas! I realize the next Ice Age will happen regardless if humans are here or not,but the the sooner we humble ourselves and realize as humans the earth doesn’t revolve around us and nothing last forever the better off our reality may be!

Data shows obliquity is less today (2000 AD) then it was around 8000 BC , more favorable for glaciation ,as well as Precession being much more favorable for glaciation.

Data shows that at the time of 8000 BC , N.H. experienced Perihelion during the summer less favorable for glaciation in contrast to today when the N.H. experiences Aphelion during the summer.

Based solely on Milankovitch Cycles the earth is much more favorable today for glaciation as opposed to 8000 BC.

Orbit eccentricity if taken into account being more or less neutral during that time span 8000 BC- 2000 AD.

What is interesting is from the Holocene Optimum through today each warm period, those being the Minoan, Roman, Medieval, and the Modern Warm Period just recently, has tended to be cooler then the one previous to the most recent one.

I think the slow moving cycles such as Land /Ocean Arrangements, Milankovitch Cycles , to name two are in a gradual cooling trend with solar variability being superimposed upon this gradual cooling cycle.

Future, random events( terrestrial/extra terrestrial ) must always be taken into some consideration which would be SUPER superimposed upon the climate cycle if that should ever happen.

Could there be more obvious proof of climate change? For the first time ever we have a miserably cold winter in the northern US & eastern Canada while at the very same time we also have a markedly warmer winter in — of all places — California! Don’t people realize what this unprecedented change means? If the extreme change continues we may actually live to see the day when… wait for it… people from the northern parts of North America actually temporarily vacate their homes during the harsh winter and travel great distances to visit warmer southern locales ON THE SAME CONTINENT AT THE VERY SAME TIME. It boggles the mind that it could even be possible. And yet it’s happening right before our eyes.

I foresee some opportunistic business people taking advantage of this situation. We may one day see an abundance of hotels, resorts, timeshare condominiums, etc. in places like California and Florida and Mexico, mainly to cater to northerners as they (vainly) try to escape the changing climate.

A warmer winter in California may actually be caused by a colder winter in the upper Northern Hemisphere. Oregon and Washington have been experiencing cloudless, dry weather with a cold east or north wind coming down from Canada. The frigid Arctic air blowing southward may actually cause dry, sunny conditions in Oregon, Washington, California, and the Southwest — while simultaneously causing record-breaking snow and blizzards in the Northeast and the Midwest. I’ll wager that when the unseasonably sunny weather here in Oregon ends, the unseasonably cold weather back east may also end.

Our governments will only act when the status quo is threatened. When food is in short supply and people start to raid shops and farms then they will act, with force. While their army of enforcers control the people they will be moving into their bunkers to give orders in safety. It sounds like a sci-fi movie but it would be very real. The only author I can think of who understands the human psyche during strange times was John Wyndham, (day of the triffids, the kraken wakes) well worth reading. Being honest, the only person to look after you, is you! How you prepare now may affect what you have and can keep from others in the not to distant future.
Keep warm

I retired from the Army at 37 and then went to college to get a BS and MS in Geology. My professors are the ones who provided me with the analytical methods and the “building block” material that has lead me inexorably to a “the earth is cooling and there’s nothing we can do about it” position. At the same time though, everyone of them is a staunch AGW believer and campaigner….I don’t see how myself and my professors can have been given the same information and arrive at such different conclusions.

Follow the money. If you were super wealthy and looked for an opportunity to make a large amount of money, would you not, at this time try to lower the cost of coal fired power plants? Buy them at a discount and when the public is cold they will fire them back up at a great cost to the public. Why else would you shut down power with a 500+ year supply? Unless you are trying to cripple this country, maybe he’s not an American, just dressed in sheep’s clothing. Only two reasons. You pick?

squidly wrote: “however, we have been down these roads before and I would be extremely hesitant to declare an “iceage” imminent. It is simply too difficult for us to predict.”

Alas, that is a problem. It’s not like Y2K where you can point to an exact date, and, being a complex system, the “flip” to a full fledged glacial climate regime will probably be triggered by some random event we cannot foresee, and may not understand after it happens either–like Per Bak’s simulated rice pile (or sand piles in the physical world).

My real worry is if the return to a glacial-inducing climate descends on us as suddenly as the Younger Dryas. I don’t see how civilization north of the tropics could survive something that fast. I used to assume the Younger Dryas was an anomaly, caused by the collapse of Lake Aggasiz, but then a study found that the timing of the two events didn’t work. Next, I became excited by the asteroid crash theory, which appeared superficially promising, but that theory now looks very unlikely. In fact, I don’t really know whether there is any good reason to think the Younger Dryas was caused by anything different than the Older Dryas or the Oldest Dryas. So is the Younger Dryas an analogue for the Holocene’s end? God, I hope not.

So, no, we cannot say for sure that our interglacial will end in our lifetimes, or a little later, or centuries from now. No certainty on the timing. But behold the handwriting on the wall.

If it were only a matter of multiple ocean currents switching into a phase that favors cooling for the next thirty years, and a weak solar magnetic field that favors cloud formation and a cooler, drier world, that, however harsh, is at least nothing civilization has not weathered in the past. But let us keep this within the context of the larger picture. Look at the forest and not just the individual tree.

Except for the period since the 1870’s, and for a few decades in the 16th century, the world has been in Little Ice Age conditions since AD 1300, or roughly 500 of the last 700 years. Our interglacial has never seen a cooling episode this long, not even close, and now we appear ready to slip into those cooler conditions again.

Summer insolation at the Arctic Circle (regulated by earth’s orbital “Milankovitch” variations) is below levels where three earlier interglacials terminated, contrary to claims made in a paper much celebrated by global warmists about 15 years ago.

Past interglacials have been reported to end regularly when earth’s obliquity falls to either 44 or 45 degrees (I have seen both numbers). It is currently at 44.4 degrees. Probably close enough.

It seems to be something of a mystery why a weaker geomagnetic field and the return of glacial episodes go together, but it seems clear they do. And, indeed, temperatures under the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly that has developed off the east coast of South America have been reported to be cooler than the surrounding area. And earth’s magnetic field is now weakening at an astonishing rate, according to a recent study.

It is still a matter of dispute whether Total Solar Irradiance is a key driver of earth’s temperature, but at the very least the two have gone up and down together in the past, for whatever reasons. Although there are short term fluctuations, the secular trend of TSI rose steadily from the end of the last ice age, peaked and began to decline when the Holocene Thermal Max ended about five to six thousand years ago, and–in a chart I saw–is down to where it was in the early part of our interglacial, before the Thermal Maximum. And one dedicated global warmist reported last year that TSI is now plummeting at a rate that is unprecedented in at least 10,000 years.

Finally, for the last million years at least, interglacials have lasted about half the length of a precessional cycle and then ended, unless, like MIS 11 circa 430kya, insolation at the Arctic Circle stayed high enough to permit back-to-back interglacials of about equal length. But it has not stayed that high this time, and at 11,500 years of age, it is only to be expected that our interglacial should end anytime, for few have lasted longer.

So that is the big picture. Every key indicator is pointing in the same direction at the same time, for the first time since our interglacial began. Will the upcoming weak phase in solar activity push earth over the tipping point? Or will the long summer hold on a little longer until earth’s obliquity declines slightly more, or her magnetic field weakens some more, or the plummeting TSI plummets a little further? I don’t know, I don’t have a climatic crystal ball, but I don’t view that as a reason to take the cyclical cooling phase that is now beginning lightly.

Yes, even an ordinary solar minimum at this time, with seven billion people, and another 2 billion increase expected during the next (cold) 25 years, with a food supply system reshaped by globalization policies that assume continued free trade (unlike 2011, when several countries banned food exports!) with cheap and abundant transport fuel, and with the food system having dispensed with stockpiled inventories such as the US still had in the seventies in favor of manufacturing’s “just in time” delivery system, and other vulnerabilities I have no time to go into now, will guarantee mankind a very rough ride in the decades ahead, and I fear that the problems associated with high population densities may be alleviated from time to time by the most horrid means imaginable. Yet worse is not only possible, but virtually certain in every respect except the exact timing, which I suspect we will never know with certainty until it happens. It is not even a problem of limited knowledge, but the nature of phase transitions in complex systems. When that sand pile gets high enough, you know a collapse has to be near, but no supercomputer will ever be able to calculate when. It is sort of like choosing to live on the San Andreas fault when you know the next “big one” is due anytime, and inevitable.